01:920:101 Lecture 20: Social Movements

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4/27/17 Lecture: Social Movements
• Social problems
o Diagnosis: define something as a problem
▪ Ex) student debt – defined as problem, people struggle
with.
▪ Ex) unemployment
o Cause – define problem’s cause as social (result of institutions,
culture, specific public policy)
▪ Link student debt to rising cost of college/declining state
support – connects private trouble to public issue.
o Empowerment – perception that “we” can do something about
it.
▪ Without this, it’s a problem but what can you actually do
about it.
▪ Social movement doesn’t develop until you get a sense
you can change the social force/ do something about
problem
• Democracy
o Democratic orientation
▪ We see social conditions not only as something to adapt
to, but something we can work together to change.
o Conscious and collective process
o Democracy is a form of collective behavior
o Problems:
▪ Often reduced to voting ▪ Spectator sport – we watch what’s going on and we
cheer/boo, it’s just something that’s happening that we
aren’t a part of.
• When we treat it like this, it develops sense of
apathy.
▪ Apathy – we feel like we vote once every 4 years but other
than that there’s nothing we can do to influence public
policy.
• Non violent civil disobedience
o Made point that delegitimized the argument
▪ Ex) freedom riders – people were so angry they would fire